Tax Time!

A billion seconds ago, it was 1976; the same year Jimmy Carter declared, "Our income-tax system is a disgrace to the human race." By comparison, at the rate our federal government is wasting our money, a billion dollars was just 3 hours ago.

The tax code has reached over 9,000,000 words, or about 60,000 pages. Roughly 40 times longer than the 1,500-page book, War and Peace -- But without the easy reading.

If a speed-reader were to read one page of tax code per minute (forget comprehension), for 8 hours per day, every weekday, it would take him 1.4 years to read the entire tax code. He probably still wouldn't understand a bit of it.

Nevertheless, we continue to add to it. Cuts here, hikes there, refunds, addenda, exemptions, gun control laws, special favors, etc.

The U.S. Treasury Dept. puts the cost of complying with the Tax Code at an estimated $125,000,000,000.00 annually (other estimates are as high as 194,000,000,000,000.00, but what's another $69Billion, right? Lets pretend we trust them, and use their figure of $125Billion. Remember, that is money spent just to get ready to pay taxes. It doesn't count toward actually paying them.

How do we comprehend 125Billion? Well, to give you an idea, 125Billion seconds ago was 1,955 years before Christ walked the earth.

Next time you hear a Democrat complain about the cost of "Bush's war in Iraq", which right now sits at $474Billion (another staggering number), put it into perspective for them. If we took the money which Americans are forced to waste every year in complying with the tax code, and paid it toward "Bush's war", we'd pay it off in a little under 3.8 years. Enough about your "children's children paying for this war"!

And speaking of children...

With $125Billion, you could purchase enough rice to feed every single one of the Seventy-Six Million, Five-Hundred Eleven Thousand, Eight-Hundred Eighty Seven people who are starving in famine-plagued Ethiopia, 3 meals a day for the next 20 years. You could probably throw in steak and lobster every now and then if you were willing to shave off a couple years.

As if the money isn't a big enough waste, we don't just waste $125,000,000,000.00, we also waste 6,600,000,000 man-hours EVERY YEAR. If 125Billion seconds ago was 1955B.C., how long ago was 6.6Billion HOURS? Quite frankly we can't comprehend that amount of time, but for the record, it was 753,424 years ago. Think of the money and products that could be made with that much time. But no, instead we spend that time just filing taxes.

Since we can't fathom 753,424 years, in man-hours by itself, lets get creative.

If the average 1800 sq. ft. home takes an estimated 2,000 man-hours to build; with the hours wasted every year, we could build such a house for every man, woman, and child in Wyoming, Washington DC, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, and South Dakota, combined!. And still have enough hours left over to build one for everybody in Pittsburgh, PA. That's 3,300,000 houses!

Literally monumental achievements look like child's play, when compared to such a revolting waste of time and productivity. The American Dream: To try and decipher the tax code... Again.

What could be be doing instead? We could build The Golden Gate Bridge 264 times over, or complete another 942 Empire State Buildings. I wonder how many billion hours we are from discovering a cure for cancer.

I'd like to know how many hours went into the building of the World Trade Center, but all I can find are figures for the cleanup time. The figure is 3.4 million man-hours. We could have done the cleanup 1941 times.

This is probably the only time I will ever say it, but Jimmy Carter was right -- This country's income-tax system is a disgrace to the human race.

Well here we are again, at that lovely time of year we refer to as "The Holidays". When you boil it down, "The Holidays" is basically just an excuse for people to sit at home, get fat, and spend all the money they've managed to save up in the previous year. Of course the money doesn't go to anything worthwhile - mostly overpriced crap that will be broken and forgotten before the New-Years Fireworks have had time to cool - Crap that will, of course, also be the wrong thing, wrong color, wrong size, or wrong damn brand of plastic airplane.

You should have just taken all that money and thrown it out the window. Or better yet, just filled up that red pot of the bell ringers at the mall! At least then he might take a break and let you hear yourself think for a couple of seconds.

You poor saps will once again repeat the same rituals as last year. The ones you swore wouldn't happen again. Even as I write this I can see the picture clearly in my mind's eye...

By now almost everybody has gone and fought merciless crowds for parking, walking, and breathing space, only to fight them again on the inside for their own share of New-Years garbage can fodder. Of course a wise few have done all of their shopping online, and six months early. Unfortunately, everything they bought back then is out-of-date, and they'll be the ones turning up at Wal-Mart at 2:00 am, trying to get something that will pass as "modern" gifts.

You'll spend plenty of time with family, fighting over the same thing you all fought about last year, eating the same foods as last year, and listening to the same five damn Christmas songs as last year (Which of course will include three, slaughtered and butchered by Mariah Carey - with love). More likely than not, you'll see the same damn Christmas movies as well, and you'll all get nice and nostalgic about them. And be hearing and repeating a chorus of "You'll shoot your eye out!", for the next 2 months.

Once it's all over, you'll wonder why you even bother with Christmas. You'll drive/fly/bus you miserable selves back to your depressing lives, with way overpriced tickets, going back to work, and eating stale candy. Making lame jokes about the weight you gained over the holidays, and how your New-Years' resolution will be to lose it.

You'll return ninety-five percent of the crap that you haven't managed to break. It didn't come from Wal-Mart, but it's going back there, and charging up a "gift" card. You'll probably buy something lame with it too; which will break anyway.

And that my friends is how your depressing, miserable holidays will be. No wonder the suicide rate rises around the holiday season!

But as the nausea leaves, and normalcy of your pathetic existence comes back, you'll slowly come to the realization that it really wasn't that bad. The time away from work was probably a good thing, and even though you argued about stupid stuff the whole time you were with them; it's nice to be back with family. You'll probably even realize how selfish you were, remembering all the folks who didn't even get to have a Christmas. Hopefully you'll be able to reflect and say that you took the time to help out one or two people who didn't have it so great this holiday.

And then you'll be set to start earning money to pay for it all again next year. Maybe you'll even set aside a little extra cash, and buy a new Christmas CD so you don't have to listen to that damn Mariah.

"But, Austin" you ask "What will YOU do differently, you condescending know-it-all?" The answer, "I'll be doing the same damn thing as you. I've just gotten all my resentment out of the way for the year. Bah Humbug!"

And Happy F***ing Holidays!

Cookie Cutter Non-Conformists

I found a video recently on YouTube. Someone has taken a song by Hollywood Undead, entitled I Must Be Emo, and put it to a series of pictures. If you haven't seen it. Here's a copy of it someone's posted http://youtube.com/watch?v=P20yobq4e7U.

I just don't understand what the allure is to some folks. They try and try to be "Different", and they do it by doing what all the other "Different" kids do. Don't they realize that they're just following the rest of the flock? America is full of sheeple now. Blindly doing what everybody else does, saying what everybody else says, without stopping to form an opinion of their own.

"Emo" Really? You're so emotional that your emotions aren't enough? You now have to let everybody know how emotional you are by butchering your hair, and wearing women's pants? Are you sure that music makes you cry because it touches you? It makes ME cry because it's so bad!

"Goth" Really? Do you even know what that means? How the hell did this survive past Beetlejuice?

"Look at me, I wear black clothes."
So?
"...and eyeliner"
Oooooh, you're a badass!
"...and nail polish!"
Yeah, you and all the other kids who are trying to be "Different".

"Punk" Really? Please! This shoulda gone out of style BEFORE Beetlejuice. You really think the Mohawk is gonna tell the world how out of control you are? How amazingly original you are? Too bad your uncle already did that. No really, he's even got a picture of it on his desk at work.

Just skip the charade and get a job. No, you're not a troubled artist who's gonna make it big. Everybody who was going to pull that off with a pink Mohawk already did it back before you were born.

"Nerd" Really? This used to be something kids tried to avoid. Sure there will always be the Geeks and Nerds who never could figure out any social skills. But why would you TRY to be a loser? Geez this world needs help.

"Wigger" You've got to be f***ing kidding me! Okay so everybody else tries to be something they're not. Why not go there, right? You can just pretend not to understand Grammar, Syntax, or hell, even the basic English language. You're so "Hip" you not only can't spell, you can't even f***ing talk! Phonetics are for republicans right? Awesome! You've really pulled something off.

Now that you've lost all of your basic communication skills, buy all baby blue clothing at least 5 sizes too large, and put some women's underwear on your head. Oh boy, now you're something!

What's so wrong with being normal? Most of these kids who are trying so hard to be something they're most certainly not, actually have pretty decent lives. Two parent homes, upper middle class income, nice houses, decent cars. So why is it so uncool to be happy with that? Is it possible for a charmed life to be too good? Apparently so. I suppose the mind is wired to be ready to deal with adversity, and when it doesn't come. Some people just have to get out there and create it!

"Life's too easy, what can I do to make it harder? How can I pretend to have problems? My folks have just come too far, I need to find a way to slide down the food chain a couple of links." Is that it?

Or are they just so afraid of being "Normal", because everybody else is so abnormal, that they'll never have full lives otherwise? Or maybe they've tried being "normal" and didn't like going by unnoticed. Their parents aren't paying enough attention to them. So to get attention, they're going to have to go against the flow.

"But how to go against the flow? This is new to me? ...Wait! Little Timmy gets noticed by HIS parents, what could it be? His hair? His clothes? His makeup? Yes! That's it! I'll do what little Timmy does and THEN I'll get noticed. THEN, and only then, will I have an identity all my own. My very own personality, that will make folks say "That kid, he's a special kid, he's not like all the others". That's what they say about Timmy!"

It doesn't take long before you have every kid in the neighborhood dressing and acting like every other kid in the neighborhood. In their pathetic attempt to be "Different" they all become the same.

And so ushers in the next generation of "Cookie Cutter Non-Conformists".

NOTE: Due to the sensibilities of one Jeffrey Petersuck, I have edited my blog to be more "Family Friendly"